Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [32]
I have never minded risking failure, because I was never punished for failing.
Life was about the journey – and the fun and adventure along the way. It was never just about the destination, such as getting perfect exam results or making the top team. (Dad had always been pretty hopeless at sports and academia, yet he had done well and was greatly loved – so that was good enough for me.)
He would always say that what really matters in life is to ‘Follow your dreams and to look after your friends and family along the way.’ That was life in a nutshell for him, and I so hope to pass that on to my boys as they grow up.
On that note, I would slip the school reports in the bin and get a big hug.
The other final memory, from growing up on the island, is of going on a monster run one day, and getting very bad groin rub on the last mile towards home.
I had endured the rubbing for the previous eight miles, but it was now becoming agony. No one was around, the village was deserted, it was a warm summer’s evening, so I took my shorts off and continued the final leg of the run naked.
No sooner had I run a hundred metres than I heard a police siren right behind me.
I could not believe it.
I mean, in all my life growing up on the island, I had never even seen a police car. There was a station in the village, but it always just sat empty, acting only as a staging post if ever needed – and it certainly didn’t have its own police car. The nearest permanent station was thirty minutes away.
This was bad luck in the extreme.
The car pulled me over, and the officer told me to get in the back: ‘Sharpish!’
I jumped in, tried to explain, but was told to be quiet. I was nicked.
I did eventually make it home after doing some serious explaining that I was not a streaker or a pervert. I even showed them my blood-red groin rub as proof.
Finally, they let me off with a caution.
So there you have it: I had been arrested for nudity, flunked my exams, and failed at getting a girlfriend – but I had a hunger for adventure and the love of a great family in my soul.
I was as ready, as I could ever be, for my entrance into the big bad world.
CHAPTER 29
My first summer after leaving school I realized that my priority, if I was to get to travel and adventure and see something of the world, was to earn some money.
I had always been encouraged to be an entrepreneur from when I was very young, whether it was getting paid to do a paper round in the Isle of Wight or trying to sell home-brewed cider made from apple juice at school. (Great recipe, thanks, Watty.)
So I set out to make a buck … selling my mother’s water filters, door to door. It was hard, thankless work, but I found that a sufficient number of my parents’ friends were encouraging enough at least to give me half an hour of their time, to demonstrate the benefits of non-chlorinated water.
Ill-fitting tap attachments that squirted water over many an immaculate kitchen cost me a considerable amount of my profits, but I persevered, and over a summer I managed to earn enough money to get a ticket to go InterRailing around Europe.
I slept on trains and explored many of the European cities. But I soon got quite depressed by the traffic and noise of one city after another.
In Berlin, not wanting to carry my heavy backpack into the city centre after dark, I had hidden my belongings behind a row of dustbins, whilst I went for an explore. Upon returning, I found a tramp huddled over in the dark, rifling through my bags.
I shouted at him and ran towards both my pack and him.
At this point he pulled out the diving knife that I had in my bag and started brandishing it at me wildly. Luckily he was far too drunk to be able to use the knife, and I managed to disarm him and recover it in one relatively tidy move. But the fear and adrenalin of the situation